It was so good that I surely wanted to freeze some more corn-on-the-cob this year as well. However, I ran across a tool in the basement that I remember my mother using when I was a kid to make "cream" corn. Here's a picture of it.
You place this over a large bowl with the corn cob on the right side and slide it over the metal plate in the middle which cuts off the tops of the kernels and scrapes the "cream" from the cob. Here's a close-up of the metal plate.
I placed a bowl on the seat of a chair, set the device over the bowl and sat on another chair facing it. This allowed me to use the weight of my upper body to help put pressure on the corn cob.
You have to apply a lot of downward pressure to get all the kernels and cream scraped off. So, my arm got a good workout! It also makes quite a mess.
At this point, it was ready to freeze. Most vegetables should be "blanched" before freezing to stop enzyme action that causes them to deteriorate while frozen. All the web sites I read said to blanch the corn while it was still on the cob and then scrape it. But, I remember my mother scraping the corn first and then heating it on the top of the stove in a large pot before freezing it. So, I assume she was blanching at that point.
Anyway, I put it in a large pot and set it on the stove to heat.
As it heated, it began to thicken and I had to stir it almost constantly to keep it from sticking. I decided to add some water which helped somewhat. I wish I could have called my mom to get some advice, but she passed away many years ago and so I was on my own.
I planned to boil it for 10 minutes before putting it into freezer bags, but it never really boiled because it was too thick! I ended up heating it until it was steaming and kept it at that temperature for about 10 minutes. I finally tasted it and it tasted done, so I pronounced it ready to freeze. And, here is the result.
If I do this again next year, I will try blanching it on the cob before I cut it off and see if that works better. In either case, the corn cutter/creamer tool is very helpful and can still be found online. Here is one link I found for it: Corn Cutter/Creamer
IT's pretty cool to see how that works. I blanch mine on the cob but have a corn cutter I got from pampered chef. It is a lot of work to decob the corn, but oh so worth it in the winter when there's nothing good to eat. :)
ReplyDeleteIf other readers don't have that nifty tool, they could do it the way I used to. Use a sharp knife to cut the tops off of the kernels. (Like you were cutting the corn from the cob, but don't cut close to the cob.) Then use the back of the knife, the dull side, to scrape the milky insides into the same bowl. It's plenty messy too!
ReplyDeleteI'll have to remember to heat mine somehow before freezing. Thanks for the great blog!